1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, a program, and a communication terminal, and in particular, relates to an information processing apparatus that transmits and receives television programs, an information processing method, a program, and a communication terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, communication terminals such as mobile phones on which a function to reproduce music, video and the like by communication terminals such as mobile phones is mounted have been developed and commercially available. Like a computer, a communication terminal can also establish connection to the Internet and perform information processing, and content such as music and video can be received by a streaming system from a streaming server set up on the Internet by using such a communication terminal.
To reproduce a file received from a streaming server set up on the Internet by a communication terminal, the communication terminal needs a buffer memory having a certain capacity. Files received from the streaming server are accumulated in the buffer memory of the communication terminal to realize continuous reproduction by the files being sequentially reproduced.
However, issues below that arise make continuous reproduction by the communication terminal difficult:
(1) The communication environment of a place where a user having a communication terminal is located is not fixed and thus, sufficient communication performance is not obtainable so that a state where the file to be received next is not receivable continues. Accordingly, files accumulated in the buffer memory are used up, leading to the interruption of reproduction.
(2) Even if communication performance of a communication terminal is sufficient, access to a server becomes too much so that transmission from the server to the communication terminal becomes insufficient. Also in this case, like (1), files accumulated in the buffer memory are used up, leading to the interruption of reproduction.
Thus, a technology that delivers image data without loss to a communication terminal by switching (handover) base stations communicating with the communication terminal even if a communication line is temporarily cut off is disclosed (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-32204).